{"id":3591,"date":"2016-01-24T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T15:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3591"},"modified":"2016-01-19T10:16:15","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T15:16:15","slug":"called-to-holiness-20160124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3591","title":{"rendered":"CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20160124"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"transfiguration\"<\/a>As I shared in the last issue of this article, before union with God can take place, two things must\u00a0\u00a0 happen: God must reach out to us and we must respond. When God\u2019s hand of grace is grasped by our hand of faith, the result is salvation, wholeness, union with God. We work with God, yet all is by grace. The notion of merit <\/em>is foreign to the Eastern Church. Thus, although salvation is a gift of God, we do have a part to play in it. We need to grasp by faith the hand of Christ that is already extended to us. That\u00a0\u00a0 grasping of the hand of Jesus by faith becomes a powerful tool for Theosis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Most of the Fathers of the Eastern Church distinguish between the image<\/em> and likeness<\/em> in order to show the dynamic character of the acquisition of virtues and of deification. According to this distinction, God\u2019s image in man determines the sum of possibilities for realizing the likeness – <\/em>that is, the potentiality of the likeness <\/em>of God as manifested in the Person of Jesus, the Christ. The likeness<\/em>, however, is constituted by the image\u2019s fulfillment. It consists of the image\u2019s blossoming forth, consistent with its integral nature, and resides in the realization of its perfection. Whereas the image<\/em> is natural, the likeness<\/em> is virtual or acquired – it is to be realized by man\u2019s free participation in God\u2019s deifying grace. St. Basil explains the Genesis text in this manner: We possess one, image<\/em>, by creation and we acquire the other, likeness<\/em>, by will. In the first it is given to us to be born in the image of God. Being in the Iikeness<\/em> of God is formed in us by the will. Our nature possess potentially what belongs to the will, but we procure this for ourselves through action. If in creating us, the Lord had not taken precaution in\u00a0\u00a0 advance to say, \u201cLet US make\u201d and \u201cin the likeness\u201d, if He had not bestowed upon us the potential to become the likeness<\/em>, we would not be able to acquire the likeness<\/em> of God by our own might. But behold, He has created us potentially able to be like Him.<\/p>\n

This idea forms the core of Eastern Spirituality!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I shared in the last issue of this article, before union with God can take place, two things must\u00a0\u00a0 happen: God must reach out to us and we must respond. When God\u2019s hand of grace is grasped by our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-called-to-holiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3592,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions\/3592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}